Since the mid-1800's, talking dolls have been known. These early dolls were generally of two types: one with a string activated wood and paper bellows said "Mama" or "Papa", the other relied on a weight activated cylindrical bellows with holes along one side to emit a crying sound when moved. Some dolls are still made this way today.
In the 1890's a doll known as the "Jumeau Bebe and a Phonographe" told jokes, spoke phrases like "Hello, my dear little Mommie", using a mechanism designed by Thomas Edison, which was a wax cylinder recording activated by a key wound clockwork-like mechanism. In the early 1900's a doll known as "Dolly" sang and recited nursery rhymes. These dolls also used cylindrical records, but the recordings were probably on plastic or rubber cylinders.
In 1960, a doll known as "Chatty Kathy" was introduced which had a repertoire of eleven to twenty-two phrases. The voice mechanism was operated by a pull string which activated a miniature phonograph disc that played back pre-recorded phrases.
Over the years, there have been many efforts to make a doll more lifelike and communicative with its owner. U.S. Pat. No. 3,293,794 discloses an animated talking doll with a mouth actuating mechanism; eye and lip movements were coordinated with a phonographic means for reproducing speech. U.S. Pat. No. 3,315,406 proposed an improved mechanism for coordinating the movements of the jaw with a phonograph. U.S. Pat. No. 3,745,696 disclosed a doll in which there were multiple animations in the face.
More recently, it has been proposed to combine a cassette recording in a doll, and the recording includes signals which will synchronously control the movement of the mouth of the doll as the recorded phrases are reproduced. It has further been proposed to have two dolls with cassette recordings which will appear to simulate intelligent conversation. These last mentioned dolls have also been provided with mouth actuating means which move the mouth in synchronism with the recorded speech.
A drawback with these dolls is that they are not interactive with the child. Some toy manufacturers maintain that the talking dolls improve the play value for children between three and nine years. Some child psychologists and parents disagree, stating that these dolls do nothing to stimulate a child's imagination. The result is that children are reduced to reacting to a toy passively, much like watching television.
A professor of child development at a leading university has stated that talking toys serve to try to get children to have a more limited dialogue with themselves. A child development specialist in the Pediatrics Department of a West Coast hospital observed that children often turn off their high tech dolls. This specialist has stated that, when he goes through the rooms of a pediatric center, he rarely hears children playing with them. Initially, the children are fascinated, but, when the thrill wears off, young children use them in their own way, much as a snuggling teddy bear. Young people need toys which inspire their imagination.
The loss of interest of the child in the speaking ability of a toy is believed to be due to the repetitious nature of the speech provided by the toys. Children soon become cognizant of the repetitive nature of the vocabulary and lose interest.
The related co-pending application discloses dolls having speech synthesizers, together with vocabulary words and phrases stored in memory which may be accessed depending upon a radio frequency transmission from another doll. In a doll network, one doll randomly becomes a speaker while the other(s) merely responds during a given conversational routine. After completion of a routine, another doll may become the dominant speaker for a second routine.
A single doll is provided with a speaking system which includes a central processing unit (CPU), a read only memory (ROM) having digital data indicative of speech stored therein, and a speech synthesizer including an audio amplifier which will amplify speech phrases selected from the ROM and apply the synthesized speech to a speaker. The doll's vocabulary is selected so that it can be concatenated into phrases for establishing what is referred to as a routine, and various sessions of speech within each routine. Additionally, the synthesized speed is made responsive to various positions of the doll or the actuation of certain sensors on the doll, or even the motion of the doll.
Such a doll is capable of interacting speechwise with other dolls and thereby providing interaction of the children who own the dolls. Logic systems of the dolls are so arranged that a multiplicity of dolls may engage in a network of speech. A doll may periodically initiate a signal to determine if a similar doll is within its radio frequency (RF) broadcast range, and, if this is detected, the dolls will engage in a routine of simulated conversation which is divided into succeeding sessions. In the case where two dolls are present, determination is made of who will be the speaker and who will be the responder for a first session. After such first session, another determination is made of who will be speaker and who will be responder for the next session in this routine. A third, fourth or more dolls which are present during a sequence will be listeners and provide occasional responses; however, the third, fourth or other dolls, upon beginning of the next session, may become the speakers and/or responders, and the previous speaker and responder may then become listeners.
This selection of who is speakers and responders is done in a random fashion, so that it will appear to the owners of the dolls that all dolls are engaging in the simulated conversation.
At the beginning of a session, the first doll to send its RF signal message is referred to as the "A" doll. The "A" doll will randomly select a routine in its memory and broadcast a radio frequency signal identifying the routine and other data hereinafter described. The first of the other dolls, dependent upon a random basis, to respond to the first doll, will become the responder or "B" doll, and any remaining dolls will then be listeners or "C" dolls for that session within the routine, but in some sessions, may utter a response. In this manner, there will be no confusion or collisions between the spoken words of the dolls.
Additionally, an "A" doll, after selecting simulated speech, will then transmit a binary coded signal over a RF transceiver. This binary coded signal will be picked up by the randomly selected "B" doll and compared with that sequence of the routine selected by the "A" doll. The memory of the "B" doll will contain a plurality of possible responses, which may be selected on a random or predetermined basis and then the selected answer is transmitted on the radio frequency transceiver of the "B" doll. This may complete a session within a routine, at which time all dolls in the network may randomly generate a signal to determine who will be the next "A" doll. However, the session may include additional transmissions by both dolls together with literal communication.